How have people mispronounced your name? How is it supposed to sound?
Submitted by Lorie.
This has nothing to do with food, but it addresses a little peeve of mine so I'm answering. No one really mispronounces my name. It is pretty common. Occasionally people would mispronounce my maiden name, adding an extra vowel or turning the two Ls into a Y sound or something. My maiden name is pronounced phonetically but it unusual and has a lot of letters, so I can understand how it would cause someone to fumble. I don't understand why people get so huffy when people mispronounce their name, especially if it is long, unusual, or has a combination of vowels that could be pronounced in a variety of ways. It strikes me as really egotistical for someone to expect everyone to be able to pronounce an unusual name right off the bat and to treat people like they are stupid if they can't. If you have an uncommon name, I think mispronunciation is just sort of your lot in life. If someone you deal with on a regular basis doesn't bother to learn it, well, that is inconsiderate. But don't be all bitchy to the 16-year-old cashier at the drugstore because she can't say Xzoifdaghy correctly.
I wish I liked football. I do! I wish I could be one of those cool girls who wears a football jersey and cheers when they all run one way and boos when they run the other way, and knows what “offsides” means. But I’m not. I’m an annoying girly girl who has had football explained to her 3,000 times and still doesn’t get it.
Therefore, to me, Superbowl Sunday is all about the snacks. This year, I made tiny football-shaped gingerbread cookies. I used my famous gingerbread recipe, which is actually Martha’s famous gingerbread recipe, but I like to take the credit. I chose that particular cookie because, doy, they are brown. I piped on royal-icing laces.
I couldn’t actually find a football-shaped cookie cutter, so I bought an oval fondant cutter instead. I wanted tiny cookies anyway, and I think it looks football-ish enough.
My royal icing used meringue powder instead of egg whites so I wouldn’t kill anyone. As you can see from the picture, my piping skills leave something to be desired, but whatever, this wasn’t Food Network Challenge.
In other news, I went to the store today to pick up some Valentine’s candy and saw they had a full Easter display instead. WHAT. I love Easter candy, but I’m not ready! I still have jellybeans from last year!
I love pineapple, but I’ve always been intimidated by its size and spikiness. It always seemed to me like you’d need an industrial knife and some kind of training to cut one. To get my pineapple fix I’ve resorted to purchasing the pre-cut, pre-packaged kind, or to picking all the pineapple chunks out of the fruit salad at staff meetings, but I’ve always wanted to give the real thing a go.
Imagine my delight when I opened up my Williams-Sonoma catalog and saw the Pineapple Easy Slicer. The description reads:
Transform a prickly pineapple into a stack of juicy rings in seconds with the aid of this cleverly designed stainless-steel slicer. Insert the heavy-duty cutting shaft into the top of a trimmed pineapple, apply light pressure and twist the handle. The tool swiftly cores and slices the fruit, leaving its shell intact.
I picked one up this weekend, along with a plump little pineapple. The tool looks like a fat metal rod with a handle on one end and a circular blade on the other. To use it, you lop of the top of the pineapple, insert the blade-end of the tool into the pineapple flesh, and turn.
Surprisingly, the tool works just as advertised. It requires little muscle-power—I’m a whimp and I found that it cuts very easily with very little pressure. Removing the tool does take some wrangling, but nothing the average pineapple eater shouldn’t be able to handle. The pineapple rings remain on the slicer when you remove it. The best part is, if you are careful not to cut to the very bottom, you end up with an empty pineapple bowl, which can be used for things like a yogurt and honey dressing for a fruit salad.
Some things to know: the pineapple rings are in one continuous spiral, so if you want slices you do need to do a little bit of trimming by hand. Also, the core remains in the pineapple, so if you want to use the empty pineapple you need to cut that out as well.
Overall, I found the Easy Pineapple Slicer easy to use and will definitely be buying more whole pineapples in the future.
The Pineapple Easy Slicer cost $24.99 at Williams-Sonoma
What was the one toy you wanted as a kid that your parents never bought you?
Submitted by Princess of Darkness.
Even though this doesn't have anything to do with food, I had to answer anyway because my husband and I were just talking about this on the train this morning. I always wanted a Lite Brite. I don't know why my parents never got me one, but I have a feeling I might be getting one for my birthday!
